Soundbites

Could music, integral to influencing the mood of a film, be subtly but significantly reinforcing our negative attitude towards sharks? A study published this year by Andrew Nosal from the Scripps Institute for Oceanography indicates that it might. Nosal and his colleagues found that people perceive sharks negatively when footage is paired with ominous music. The concern, he says, is that when this music is used in a documentary, which audiences tend to view as an objective illustration of the natural world, associating sharks with threatening music may undermine education goals.

Nosal and his colleagues looked at our perceptions of sharks relative to the mood of background music and whether this influences our willingness to conserve them. In three experiments, people watched shark footage set to uplifting music, ominous music or silence. Overall, people viewed sharks more negatively when they were associated with ominous music. The results relating to their willingness to conserve sharks were slightly more complex. When asked in the first two experiments if they were willing to support shark conservation, people generally answered yes, regardless of music type. However, in the third experiment, the researchers gave people specific options: would you rather donate to shark conservation, dolphin conservation or a discretionary fund? In this instance, people were more likely to want to donate to shark conservation if they’d watched sharks with uplifting music.

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Illustration by Complot | Shutterstock.com

That background music is anything but inconsequential is corroborated by the many people who still trace their shark phobia to the 1975 film Jaws. As Nosal points out, that soundtrack was highly emotive and is entrenched in popular culture. He explains that Jaws ensured that film-viewers would hear that staccatto cello and immediately conjure an ominously circling dorsal fin in their mind. The dorsal fin is threatening because the film’s storyline suggests a fin breaking the surface is a precursor to a panicked swimmer’s legs and a lot of blood. In short, the film employs a leitmotif: a repeated, short musical phrase that is always coupled with the film’s ‘baddie’, linking the two. In the end, we have only to hear that music and the ghost of Jaws surfaces again in our minds.

Nosal argues that something as subtle as music is important in an educational context. People still fear sharks, which undermines the animals’ conservation potential. According to him, film-makers need to realise that whatever entertainment value they may gain from using stereotypical ‘scary shark music’ could impede any educational objectives they may have. He also points out the need for public awareness: it’s music, rather than actual experience, that may be darkening our thoughts about sharks. Only when this is understood, he suggests, might we banish the power Jaws wields in our imaginations and open ourselves to supporting shark conservation.